Skin Deep
by Grand Phoenix
Summary: Roy Phillips has always been a believer of retributive justice. Even after the War, 200 years later, his view hasn't changed in the least bit.


**Disclaimer:** Alll characters and locations belong to their respective owners.

_A/N: Just a little something on a certain Roy Phillips. I probably wouldn't have written this if it weren't for Orcidea of Youtube posting the Tenpenny Tower quest videos, so my thanks go out to him for the inspiration! :3_

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**Skin Deep**

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I've always been a firm believer in justice of the retributive kind. Back in the day when political tension was at its breaking point and hundreds if not thousands of nuclear warheads waited in the drop hatches of lined bombers, I was an inner city cop pulling overtime. Whether it's food and energy riots, anti-war protests, brawls spilling out into the streets or total anarchy, I was in the middle of it all. Armed to the teeth with essentials like tear gas and pepper spray, billyclubs and reinforced riot shields, I broke through the writhing sea and pushed it back with all my might. Behind the iron bars they went, makeshift prisons to calm the restless, the reckless, and the dangerous; and they were always crudely constructed, sometimes with hinges not fastened tight or with walls too weak to support the barrier that separated the folks from what little remained of society. Sometimes it was the authorities themselves, lazy, corrupt, and so very, very slow.

I wasn't like them. I hated them, watching them stand by and do nothing for their fellow man if ever he was in trouble. Those kinds of people are trash…no, they're _worse_ than trash. You didn't have to have blood on your hands to connect two and two and make one. Humanity was sick and dirty and stark raving mad, and instead of pulling up a chair – maybe even throw a couple punches here and there or smack each other around for good measure – and talk it out, they go absolutely apeshit. Rip their throats out with notched hunting knives or blow holes in their bodies with high-powered slugs. They paint the world in reds and blacks and blues and intestinal greens. It's so…_disgusting_.

Hell, I'm no saint. I've done my fair share of stupid things: fist-fights, drunken bar brawls, drug smuggling, I ain't no different from the rest of them. I used to deny it, refused to believe it even when I cleaned house and kept my skeletons locked away in musty closets. But all that's changed. I've stopped running from my problems a long time ago.

I stopped running the minute I learned I wasn't going to catch any slack from the people around me. The people whose skin shields their palpable innards and blood from spilling out in a grotesque avalanche. The people who lead and live their lives as if the fucking War never happened, as if they're _not_ standing on the ruins of broken hope, shattered dreams, and blood-soaked, sweat-stained history set into and built up from the foundations by our goddamned _forefathers_. And what do they do, you may ask? Why, they taint it. Pour their poison on the floor and toss their cigarette butts so they can have front row seats at one of the Capital Wasteland's many bonfires. Gather round, gather round, come watch history fold and crumble before your very eyes. Admittance is free of charge. Pop the bottle open and kick back.

And to think, I had been human _once_. Can you believe it?

So now I sit here, fixing and fine-tuning a battered Chinese rifle. Bessie Lynn is sleeping in the adjacent room, and Michael Masters and our Feral brethren patrol the metro tunnels; if I listen closely, I can hear their footsteps padding against the hard steel rails. They are soft, rapid, like the beat of my heart. Everything pulses, from my arteries to the droning monotony of the overhead lights.

The coolness of the gun's stock beneath my fingertips is my only comfort.

They'll have their comeuppance soon. All of them. The minute those blasted gates open, we're going to run them to the ground and blow their fucking walls apart. They think the world's a fucking paradise? I'll give them hell. I'll make 'em think twice with fucking with me.

They think me a zombie? A monster? Go ahead, knock yourselves out! I'll show you goddamned bastards what zombies are!

Just you wait. Justice _will_ be served.


End file.
